Just Breathe
by pinktink008
Summary: A series of journal entry style pieces written from the POV of an OC in the 2nd Mass. It's a little look at the life of one survivor of the alien attacks & her views of the world around her. Short & probably kind of fluffy. R&R please! Rated T just in case.
1. Chapter 1

**Just Breathe**

**Author's Note:** No, I do not own _Falling Skies_. It is just an amazing show that inspired me to write this one sleepless night. No, I did not make any money off of this piece of fiction. I only wish I could make some real money as a writer. I promise that I did no harm to any of the characters or settings of the TNT series _Falling Skies_. Please don't sue me. I have nothing to really give you if you did. The story is all written in the first person and it's a nameless OC. Not sure where it came from. It just came out of me when I was supposed to be going to bed. Hopefully with all the edits and additions and rewrites, it makes sense and is an enjoyable read for you all. Thank you! Comments are welcome and appreciated!

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><p>It's amazing how one action, no matter how great or small, can create such a domino effect. Just one act on someone else's part can affect so many others, even if it was never their intent. Just one day can change the whole world, even if no one wanted it changed in the first place. It's really amazing and quite scary when you think about it. Suddenly it doesn't seem so big anymore. Does it? I can't be the only one who feels this way.<p>

When the aliens attacked everything was …

I don't think there are really words to describe what that moment was like. It changed everything though. In fact, it changed the whole world and everyone in it. No one's lives were left untouched after the attack. It changed my little world in many ways, although honestly I'm just one person in all of this. I'm not so sure my story is all that interesting. In fact, I really doubt it's all that different than anyone else's story at this point. There are so many people who had their lives changed when the aliens attacked. Families were ripped apart. Children were taken and harnessed or by the grace of God, they were left orphans. It seems like only an even luckier few were able to stay with their families through this all.

How odd is it to think that being orphaned could be a good thing? Ha. Yet when you consider some of the alternatives, it's really not so bad anymore, is it? When you really stop to think about it, lives were altered by all of this and our perceptions of so many things are skewed now. Things you never thought would be 'good things' are suddenly the best alternative to what could've been. Crazy, isn't it?

For me …

For me, it was …

It wasn't easy to get where I am today. That's for sure. In fact, that's a bit of an understatement. My family had already been changed before the attack though. There was a time when I guess some people might've called me a 'little princess', a 'daddy's girl'. I was an only child and I suppose that I did get everything I wanted. Within reason. It wasn't like my family came from money but I know that I never felt like I wanted or needed anything more than I had at any given moment. Life was good for so long. Then my mom got sick. It seemed like the worst possible thing in the world and at the time, I suppose it really was the worst thing in the world for me.

It was a couple of years before she passed. That was just months before the attack. It was cancer or complications from it that took her life. Funny how now I look back and think that she was the lucky one. She didn't have to be here for any of what followed. And what followed turned out to be some of the worst things to ever happen to any of us in my opinion. No matter how much I miss her, I can look back and say that at least my mom didn't have to be here when the attack happened, at least she didn't have to watch while the world seemed to fall apart.

My dad fell apart after my mom died though. He'd always been stoic. He was a military man after all who rarely gave anyone a hug and never cried in front of others. For awhile though he was falling apart all of the time after my mom passed, crying at any mention of her. It didn't matter how big or how small it was, everything seemed to bother him. Then came the attack. It was like a switch was flipped in his head or something. He did everything he could to keep me safe after that.

It was only a few months after the attack that he died … protecting me. Yeah, some mechs came through our neighborhood, looking for survivors I suppose. My dad showed me where to hide from them. He left me with some food and some water and told me to stay right there. He promised to come back for me.

He never did.

I was only hiding for a day, maybe two, when a stranger found me. I already knew my dad wasn't coming back by then. He would've come for me already if that had been the case. This stranger said something about militias forming and how she was going to try to find one of them. It seemed safe to come out of hiding so I said that I'd go with her. What else could I do? I was an orphan now. We didn't have much, this woman and I, but she shared her food and water with me as we wandered together. Then we met a few others. And a few more after that.

It was amazing how our numbers grew from there in such a short time. I could hardly believe that there were so many survivors just wandering around. For awhile I had even hoped that I'd find my dad. Except I ran into one of our neighbors who gave me my dad's old leather jacket. He never took it off so when I got it, I knew that my dad was truly dead. It was a hard blow but at least it confirmed my suspicions. I truly was on my own now but I felt like he would've been proud of the way that I was handling everything.

Eventually our group found our way to the 2nd Mass. Some of us were pretty skeptical and still on guard when we met up with them. Too much time spent hiding from skitters and mechs will do that to a person I guess. Not me though. My dad had always called it my one big fault, this tendency to just talk to strangers like I've known them forever. Still that tendency got me that far so it couldn't be that bad. It seemed like a good thing in those first few days with the 2nd Mass after all. I can't say that I felt like I'd made new friends but I did feel like I wasn't alone anymore. It truly felt like I'd found people who would understand my story and who would be happy just to have me around.

I did what I could to help with the younger kids from the start. I've always loved kids, after all, so it seemed like a good fit. Plus the kids seemed to like me. So when they tried to start up a 'school' of some sort, I was there to help out as much as I could with getting the kids together and everything. It wasn't bad but it wasn't what I wanted to be doing. I wasn't some 'little kid' myself and I was tired of being told that I was 'just a little girl'. I'm short, yes, but that has never meant that I couldn't take care of myself. Still I did what I could to get along. One day I was cutting my own hair actually, using a really terrible pair of rusty scissors and a broken piece of mirror when someone saw me. They asked if I'd cut their hair too. It became my thing, I guess, although I doubt that I'm any good at it. Even now, it's nice to have something to do though.

That's the part that bothers me the most. I try so hard to help everyone but because I'm smaller than most, I get told to stay behind and help with the kids or watch over someone or something. Guess what? My dad was a Marine. He taught me how to shoot a gun when I was just a kid. I'm not a kid anymore. I'm 17 now. I just want to be taken seriously for a change. With everything that's happened, I don't see how they can overlook me much longer.

I don't have much left at this point. No family to speak of anyway. At least not blood relatives. This is my family now. The 2nd Mass is my family and wherever they are is home to me. With all the things that have happened, I just know that when it comes down to it, I'll get my change to go down fighting. Who cares if I'm 'just a little girl'? Right?


	2. Chapter 2

I wrote this rather quickly today. It just sort of came to me as I was thinking about what day it was today. In the United States, today is Memorial Day and it seemed like an appropriate thing for someone like this OC to write about. Even if it's just a little bit. I hope that I can come up with a few more things like this because she's an interesting girl to get inside the head of and this show seems like the perfect playground to dig into the past of original characters that don't exist on the show itself. I hope you enjoy it enough to leave a review and hopefully I'll write more soon. I know it's been a very long time but I'm hoping that I'll find more inspiration soon and that I'll get more of this up in the near future.

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><p>Today Mr. Mason came up to me and asked if I wanted to keep writing in a journal, something to keep my thoughts and memories in. I was surprised because I didn't think that my account mattered much. He saw me trying to write things down on scraps of paper that I'd found and in an old notebook that had been left behind. When he said that maybe one day my account of things would be in history books, I laughed. How crazy does that sound? The life of some insignificant 16-year-old girl could somehow be relevant in the future to remembering what these dark days were truly like. That doesn't make any sense at all but I realize now that it's true. History has always been written this way, taken from the accounts of survivors and journals of those who died at some point during the fighting. One day these words might really mean something to someone.<p>

I realized today what the day was though. Memorial day. A day to remember those fallen in war. My dad always made a big deal out of it. He was a Marine after all and it was an important day to him. We would go to the parade every year. We would barbecue in the backyard but most importantly, he would take me to the cemetery. We would stop somewhere and buy flowers, usually two dozen yellow roses, and then we'd walk around and place one on each grave that we came across that belonged to a fallen soldier. It didn't matter if we knew them or not. What mattered was we showed that we remembered their sacrifice and showed that they mattered. If I knew where my father's body was, I would've done something for him today. Instead I talked to a few people and we set up a memorial for all the people that we knew who died. Everyone left a token, a picture or something that had belonged to their friend or family member.

I walked by on my way to get something to eat and actually fell to my knees and cried today. It was the first time I think I cried since everything happened. I didn't take the time to mourn my father's death and seeing his picture, one of the two of us that he'd carried with him in the pocket of his leather jacket, it brought me to my knees. I don't remember who came to sit with me for awhile. I just remember a strong hand on my shoulder, someone rubbing my back a little. My eyes were too blurry with tears and whoever it was, they didn't say anything to me. Once I ran out of tears, well, I didn't feel much like eating. Instead I found that notebook and opened it to the first empty page I could find. Then I started to write this.

Tomorrow I'm going to ask if someone will finally let me do more than babysit the smaller children. Tomorrow I'm going to make sure they know that I'm here to fight just like they are. Tomorrow I'm going to show that I can be more of an asset than they realize. Today, however, I'm going to take a moment to breathe. Today I'm going to remember those who died to make sure that I was still here. Today I'm going to pick some wildflowers and leave them at that memorial to show that I remember and that I will always remember. Today is a day for mourning.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Another update. Short and sweet. I hope it adds to the story that is already up here. Enjoy!

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><p>When we were told today that we were going to have to pack up and move out, I was surprised. It seemed like we had been doing so well but I had to know that it wouldn't last. How long did any of us expect to be able to stay in one place? There were just too many things going on for that to be possible. We had to start moving. A moving target was harder to hit than a stationary one after all.<p>

I only packed what I could easily carry when they sent us away while the fighters did their thing. They were going to try to mobilize us once this was all said and done. I'd heard whispers about it. I'd heard whispers about Tom Mason leaving with a harnessed kid, getting on an alien ship. While he didn't come back from his last mission, I just can't manage to believe that anything that he did was going to ultimately put us into danger. Of course my opinion means nothing. One in a sea of hundreds.

If we're the only ones still out there fighting, I don't know. I just know that these people that I've been staying with for so long feel like a family to me. When one of them doesn't come back, it hurts. Right now, I'm hurting. We're down a fighter, yes, but we're also down another person. Each time it happens, it feels like another hole in our community is opened up. The wounds that I thought were healing feel like they were ripped open again.

I hated having to leave this place but now that we were mobile, I understood why we had to do it. We had to keep moving or we were all going to die. I tagged along with a few other civilians and it worked for us. I had started carrying a gun so I could help keep us safer. Not that it mattered.

We hit some resistance on the way and we lost almost half of the group, maybe more or maybe less. That hurt even more. We buried those that we could as best as we could and we moved on. It killed me to think of how many little cemeteries there probably were along the road. Who knew how many people were left on the planet let alone in Massachusetts.

We've paused again although I don't know what city or town we're in now. In fact, I don't know what day it is even. My birthday is coming up or it was anyway. Maybe that already passed. It's hard to keep track of anything anymore but we try. We keep trying. That's something I don't think the aliens had expected.

Us humans, we're proving to be a resilient bunch. We're proving to not be pushovers either. We won't go down without a fight and right now, it seems like all we seem to be doing is fighting. Every time we turn around there are more skitters and mechs to deal with. Pretty soon they're really not going to be able to over look me. I've been doing what I can to help keep our camp safe but Weaver doesn't seem so eager to let me fight on the front lines. He says that it's because I haven't proved myself. I point out that our fighting forces are starting to look a little thin.

Tomorrow Weaver's going to have someone come out with me so I can prove that I can handle a gun. Tomorrow I prove to everyone that I can be a fighter, the same as anyone else. I might still be a kid but all of us have had to grow up so fast. It's time I show everyone that I'm more than capable of handling myself.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **It's short and there will be another part to it but it's Christmas and this popped into my head for a random journal entry for our anonymous heroine! I hope you enjoy and I'll get part two up as soon as possible. Before this day is over!

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><p>Christmas.<p>

This time of year comes and goes now as if it has never happened, as if there is nothing to celebrate. It's just another day on the calendar and so few of us even know what day it is anymore anyway. When someone told us that Christmas was just days away, there were children in our group who got excited and others who said that there was no way that Santa would find them to get them presents. Those that didn't believe in Santa anymore just didn't think that anyone would be able to get them anything that might make them happy.

The night before Christmas, however, I went with a small group who ventured out to see what we could find. While there would be no time to wrap anything, we were hoping to find something to give to each child. There was no way that we could let this holiday pass without giving the children a little something to try to bring a little cheer into their lives.

We wandered for a bit until we came across a few small stores in the middle of what was once a strip mall. The stores weren't ransacked and we doubted that they would be booby trapped. It wasn't as if these aliens knew anything about a holiday such as Christmas or the joy on a child's face when they received a new toy. We had to stick with things that would be easy for us to carry and things that the children would still enjoy to play with but when we entered the darkened toy store, it was like walking into a movie. I still remember those and still remember my life before the invasion. That was all that I could think about as I wandered the aisle. There were a couple of young women with us so we went through all of the aisles with 'girl toys' while the guys covered the 'boy toys'.

As we walked, I pulled boxes of baby dolls and Barbie dolls from the shelves, finding accessories to go with those toys. I looked over to see the other girls doing the same, making sure that we covered our bases. Then I wandered to the board games, pulling out some that I thought the kids would enjoy. I even found a few educational toys for the youngest children and teething toys for any babies not yet born but who would make it into this crazy world one day nonetheless. Once my bag was full, I wandered to the front of the store. I stopped, however, to grab a teddy bear for myself. As silly as it might sound, I needed the comfort that it would bring me and I knew that it might even bring me comfort for some time to come.

We carried our haul back to camp just as another couple of groups returned as well. There was another group of teenagers who came with bags filled with toys and books for the small children and then a couple of other groups who had scavenged for food for us. We wanted to have as much of a feast as possible tomorrow to celebrate the holiday. We were, as well as we could anyway, going to celebrate the holiday season in the only ways that we could. Hopefully it would bring a little happiness to those children who didn't think that we would be able to have any kind of Christmas.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** And here's the second half of the scene. It isn't nearly as long as I would have liked it to be but it turned out nicely enough. Enjoy!

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><p>Having a group of small children rush up to you to wake you up before the sun has even started to rise can be one of the most annoying things on the planet. All you want in the whole world is just a few more hours of sleep. That is, unless, those children are squealing with delight about Christmas presents. The excitement is always infectious after all. Rolling over in the morning and stumbling out to where the gifts were left for all of the children had been tough but it had been worth it to see the way everyone's face lit up with delight. Even the adults seemed happier as they watched the children pass around the various gifts that were there, picking the things that they wanted the most.<p>

For a moment, just one moment, everything felt a little normal. And normal was something that we sorely needed.

Seeing the way everyone got excited over the gifts was wonderful enough. Watching as people passed out other little gifts for the adults as well seemed to make it even better. Books, notebooks, pens, clothing. They were simple enough gifts, things that were picked up along the way as we moved from place to place but it was enough to bring a smile to everyone's faces.

We didn't get anything too special for breakfast, just oatmeal and some fruit although the fruit was certainly a delight for all of us. Lunch was simple as well. Dinner, however, was something to behold.

Someone had gone hunting so we had plenty of fresh meat. Someone had also gone fishing so there was fish as well. There had been others who scrounged around and found some herbs and vegetables that hadn't been destroyed by the aliens. It was a rare find but there was a small greenhouse that hadn't been touched. To get fresh vegetables and food cooked with real herbs was certainly a treat.

While Christmas had always been about what I was going to get and all of the food that I could handle eating, this year I think I learned what Christmas should really mean. Maybe it was just a simple day for all of us but it was still special. Gifts were handed out and people were grateful just to have that time with others. Someone even managed to hold a little church service and stories about Christmas were told. It was amazing and even as I held onto the teddy bear that I snagged at the toy store, I was amazed by the copies of the Lord of the Rings books that someone found for me.

For once everyone is getting to go to bed with truly full stomachs and with bright smiles on their faces. That, in itself, is truly a Christmas miracle.


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